Here is the definitive collection of Siliconia on the Web.
Siliconia are appropriations of names beginning with "Silicon" by areas
outside Silicon Valley. A Siliconium can be promoted by local boosters
or it can be assigned to an area in a press account. An ideal Siliconium
will capture something unique about the regional character and when first
encountered will bring a fleeting smile.

Siliconia
inspired and is linked from a two-page spread in the September 1998
issue of Wired (pp. 136-137).

The first lawsuit is threatened over Siliconia continues
to sputter along.
Read about it here and
here.

I started this page in October 1995 based on a brief
TBTF newsletter article
listing seven Siliconia. At first this collection was in the spirit of fun,
because no-one took these Silicon Valley wannabe monikers at all seriously.

But beginning late in 1997, regions struggling to get into the Siliconia
game, years late, began to make more of a media fuss about it. Portland's
WebPort, Boston's
Cyber District,
and Los Angeles' Digital Coast all
launched with
press releases, Web sites, and steering committees. Good luck, fellas; the pond
is already plenty crowded. San Francisco's
Multimedia Gulch sponsored a
two-day
bash to promote itself in the increasingly competitive Siliconia market.

Since early in 1997 we have begun to see the appearance of Siliconia that
do not include the word "Silicon." I count Multimedia
Gulch and Media Del Rey (for example) as Siliconia
because the impetus for such nicknames is arguably the same as that for the
original Siliconia.

In the last year the trend of shunning "silicon" has picked up, as new areas pursue
the branding but strive to avoid the original cliche.

Can you supply citations to pin down the earliest uses of these Siliconia?
Heard any others? Send to
.

For a rich site covering all aspects of the original Silicon Valley,
the computer industry, and the San Francisco Bay Area, visit the
Silicon Valley Web Directory.

Warming up

First, to whet the appetite, some comments from Guy Kawasaki's
Computer Curmudgeon.
These don't rank as serious Siliconia; Kawasaki is just being cute.

Silicon Forest. Bill Gates's backyard.

Silicon Tubes. The place American chip manufacturers tell
Congress they are going down unless there are get trade barriers.

Silicon Plains. Fargo, North Dakota, the home of Great Plains
Software. (Prior to Great Plains, the most exciting thing in
Fargo was $5 blackjack at the Holiday Inn.)

Silicon Valley. An area in California where "leverage" is a
verb and "desktop" is an adjective.